The Blue Wave Begins

This is suddenly beginning to get fun.

The House just passed a suicidal, democracy-eroding and billionaire-enriching
reconciliation bill – by a single vote, 215-214 — that gives Democrats a golden opportunity to sweep MAGA Republicans out of Congress in 2026, and out of the White House soon after that. If Republicans won’t impeach him, Democrats will.

House Republicans, all of whom are up for re-election next year, are, as of May 22, on record as supporting a $700 billion cut to Medicaid, which would deny health coverage to 83 million low-income people, and a $267 billion cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps 41 million people with low incomes buy nutritious food. Most of the Republican congresspersons had promised they would never do that, but now they officially have

As if to make up for that slap, MAGA Republicans assure us they are not touching Medicare, which serves more than 67 million U.S. citizens, but that’s just another lie, a huge lie! They’re cutting Medicare by $500 billion, which would be the largest cut to Medicare in history, but that cut is hard to see because they’re hiding it so well.

Here’s how they’re doing it: The cut is not in the bill itself. Rather, it is a separate piece of legislation, called the PAY-GO Act, which will require mandatory “sequestration” of Medicare funds to “pay” for tax cuts in the reconciliation bill that are not “paid” for by other cuts in spending. The estimated $500 billion could change depending on whether the Senate’s modifications increase or decrease the deficit, but the cut to Medicare is definitely there.

It’s easy to see why the Republicans are going to such lengths to hide that. Most of those 67 million people who depend on Medicare are 65 or older, and older people vote.

Added to the 124 million participants in Medicaid or SNAP, that brings the total number of people who are directly and substantially damaged by this bill to at least 191 million. Why any one of those people would vote for any congressperson who voted for that bill is beyond me..

But the problems with the bill run even deeper than that. Not only did most Republicans in Congress break their promises that they would never touch Medicare, Medicaid or SNAP, but they also promised us they would reduce spending, and they broke that promise too. They voted for a bill that would add $3.8 trillion in new debt.

But perhaps worst of all, House Republicans went out of their way to insert a single line deep in the 900-page bill that would shield Trump and his allies from being held in contempt of court. In other words, the MAGAs are trying to pass a law that would let Trump freely defy court orders. Any court’s orders.

That alone should sink the bill in the Senate because of its “Byrd Rule”, which actually is a law (2 U.S.C. § 644) that prohibits “extraneous” provisions in reconciliation bills, and defines “extraneous” as anything that “does not produce a change in outlays or revenues.” Obviously, the Trump shield law does not do that.

A provision that violates the Byrd Rule could remain in the bill if 60 senators voted to keep it there. But that is highly unlikely because none of the 45 Democratic senators and two Independents who caucus with them are likely to vote for it, and a few Republicans might even join them. (Historically, most extraneous provisions in reconciliation bills fail anyway. The Congressional Research Service says that over the years 123 of 152 matters objected to as extraneous failed.)

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The bill contains dozens of other provisions that would change the balance of power between the government’s executive, legislative and judicial branches, but none of them appear to “produce a change in outlays or revenues” and if so they also must be dropped.

It is possible that Senate Republicans could overrule the parliamentarian if she rules that the provisions violate the Byrd Rule, but that also is unlikely. Senate Majority Leader John Thune emphatically rejected that option several months ago. He said the Senate reconciliation committee was working even then to “identify potential Byrd problems ahead of time.”

The bill is in the Senate’s hands now, and the Senate will be working on it for the next 40 days or so. If it changes even one letter in the House version – which is a certainty, that plus a lot more – the bill goes back to the House where MAGA Republicans will be forced to show their hands again.

And be clear about this: they are pushing this bill so that the very richest among us can have a $7 trillion tax cut, or about $389,000 apiece in after-tax income, starting in 2026.

Again, it’s hard for me to understand why any true American, and especially any non-billionaire, would vote for any congressperson who votes for that package – and, also again, that covers most of the Republicans in Congress. It’s probably all of them if you include the super-conservatives who think the bill doesn’t cut deeply enough into those government programs that so many people depend on.

One way we could help make sure American voters are aware of this democracy-killing bill would be to declare May 22, which is the day House originally voted for it, “Republican Shame Day,” and commemorate it every year with nationwide rallies. We could rank it up there with Jan. 6 as a significant day of infamy. We could begin next year, which would be fewer than six months before the Midterms, thus keeping fresh in every voter’s mind what democracy-destroying action Republicans took on that day.

And if that happens, look out. We can use their votes against them and turn the 2026 Midterm Elections into one of the biggest blue waves in history. After that, Democrats would have no problem finding myriad reasons to impeach him.

Something else we all should do – no, must do – is to attend a June 14 No Kings rally somewhere. There’s probably one near you, but if not, you can contact Indivisible and learn how to start one. More than 5 million of us showed up for the nationwide Hands Off rally last April 5, which was impressive, but we need many more than that on June 14.

But I say it is something we all must do, not should do, because Congress has failed us, the Supreme Court is shaky, and the news media, whose duty is to hold the government responsible for its performance, has utterly failed. So it’s up to us now, We the People, and the only way we can do that is to show up and speak out.

And please do not underrate the importance of that. As the political scientist Adam Bonica wrote, “Every authoritarian who successfully destroyed judicial independence did so because civil society failed to unite in time. The key difference? Whether people mobilized.”

We are winning. We can win. We will win.

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